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Helium Resources
Wikipedia Helium is the second most abundant element in the universe. It has 2 protons, and is unreactive unless in extreme conditions. Helium is a gas unless it is cooled to near absolute zero under Mega Pascals of pressure. It would seem that Helium would be a very easily obtainable resource since it is unreactive, stable, and very abundant. The problem is it is not nearly as abundant on Earth. It makes up only 0.00052% of Earth's atmosphere; or 5 parts per million. Scarcity on Earth The reason for this scarcity is also due to the small size. There are two equations that help explain the phenomenon. The first gives us the escape velocity of an object. Where G is the gravitational constant, M is the mass of the Earth, and r is the radius of the Earth. The escape velocity is the minimum speed an object needs to attain to be able to escape the gravity of Earth or another such body. The second equation gives a distribution of velocities for molecules. The equation to the right models the distribution of velocities using mass, temperature, and k values. This yields graphs like the one below, with the much lighter elements having a much broader distribution. So when we use the first equation to calculate the escape velocity of earth (11.2 km/s), it is easy to see that Helium will have the highest percentage of molecules that reach the escape velocity and are lost. Hydrogen can similarly attain escape velocity, but since Hydrogen is reactive, much of it forms other compounds before escaping Earth's atmosphere. Sources on Earth Wikipedia and [http://www.blm.gov/nm/st/en/prog/energy/helium/helium_facts.html Bureau of Land Management ] The helium on Earth is mostly due to the emission of alpha particles (Helium nuclei) during the radioactive decay of minerals such as uranium and thorium. The greatest concentration of the helium are found in natural gas pockets found in oil wells. The gas geysers for oil wells usually are between 0.5 and 1.5 percent helium. Helium Purification Helium is attained in its gaseous form from natural gas , which is made up of mostly hydrocarbons, carbon dioxide, oxygen, and nitrogen. The first step is to separate it out from the bulk of the impurities so the crude natural gas is run through a series of filters and a fractional distillation device. The gas is pressurized to 5.5 MPa and carbon dioxide, water, and heavy hydrocarbons are filtered out to yield what is termed crude helium. After this process the crude helium is sent through a second set of distillation tanks to separate the methane, nitrogen, and helium. The crude helium starts as a gas and is put under increasingly low temperatures and high pressures to condense the methane and nitrogen which are collected at the bottom of the tank. Depending on how pure the final product needs to be different levels of pressure, temperature, and filters are used. How We Get Helium and Why The picture on the right is a chart of how helium is obtained. We can find helium just like natural gas. In fact, it is found mixed in with natural gas in many parts of the world. It is also obtained by heating monazite rock. Helium is used in the industry for fiber-optic equipment, semiconductors, laser welding, cold gas spraying, chemical processing and leak detection. There has recently been a large increase in the price of helium due to its scarcity. Although many things in certain industries use helium, there are some processes that don't require specifically helium, for example, in the cooling of optical fiber. It can reduce the cooling time dramatically, but it is not required. Another popular use of helium involves inhalation of the substance to modify ones voice. This accounts for roughly 3% of all helium use! Helium Prices The price of helium has increased, especially in the past 10-15 years. Due to a scarcity of helium and an increased demand, prices will most likely keep rising. This chart illustrates the increase in helium prices from 1998 to the present. Prices have risen from $48 per unit of helium to about $83 between 1998 and 2013. Effects of this increase in price can even be seen when buying baloons today; prices have risen dramatiaclly even when buying small volumes of helium. Helium Technology Helium is now used in hard disk drives. After eight years of development and investigation, Western Digital will finally release a new technology, helium filled disk drives (source ). Helium has one-seventh of the density of air and it appearse to be viable method of improving drive capacity by as much as 40%. Engineers noticed that air inside the hard drive would create drag and turbulences which decreased the performance. However, using helium instead of air will decrease the drag and turbulence which will increase the performance. Developers are claiming that two platters can be inside of regular hard drive resulting the capacity up to 6TB. Common Uses of Helium (source ). *Helium is used to cool superconducting magnets in MRI scanners. *As helium is lighter than air, airships and balloons can be filled with the gas to gain lift. *Helium is used to condense hydrogen and oxygen to make rocket fuel. *Helium can be added to oxygen tanks so that divers can breath more easily. This is especially important for people that go deep diving (over 450 ft below sea level). *Used in helium-neon lasers. These lasers can be used to read barcodes. *Helium can be used to detect leaks in high-vacuum and high-pressure equipment. *For materials easily contaminated by air, helium is used as a shielding gas in the arc welding process. *Helium is used as a protective gas when growing silicon and germanium crystals and when producing titanium and zirconium. It is a fantastic protective gas as it is inert (unreactive). *The age of rocks which contain uranium and thorium can be estimated using helium dating. *Helium is often used as a carrier gas in gas chromatography. *Helium can be used to detect leaks (small fractures) in some vessels Potential long-range outcomes of Helium The ultimate energy source, sun, uses nuclear fusion with hydrogen and helium to create energy. When sun goes through nuclear fusion , it emitts helium-3 gas within its solar wind. Scientists stated that helum-3 can be used as a safe fuel in future nuclear fusion power, with only 25 tonnes of helium-3 can power the United States for a year. Nuclear fusion is a safe way to create energy then nuclear fission . Since nucelar fission releases radioactive products but nuclear fusion doesn't. However, helium-3 gas is hardly found in the Earth because atmosphere of earth blocks the helium-3 to come down on the Earth. Compare to the Earth, scientists discovered that the Moon has about 1,100,000 metric tonnes of helium-3 avaliable on its surface. Russia, United States, China, and other countries are planing to make a station on the Moon in order to mine helium-3 on the surface of the Moon. Sources http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/tj/v8/n2/helium http://www.pcworld.com/article/262274/helium_filled_wd_drives_promise_huge_boost_in_capacity.html http://www.explainingthefuture.com/helium3.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion http://wanttoknowit.com/uses-of-helium/ http://simanaitissays.com/2013/03/13/helium-and-donald-duck/